Furnace Creek Airport

At 210 feet below sea level, this is the lowest airport in North America. This public airport covers about 40 acres, is located within a mile of Furnace Creek, and serves Inyo County, California. Not many airports can boast such a low elevation, but there is one that far exceeds Death Valley’s lowness.

It is located on the shores of the Dead Sea, at 1,263 feet below sea level, a whopping 1,053 feet lower than Furnace Creek’s landing strip. In contrast to these elevations, the world’s highest airport is at Bangda in eastern Tibet, at 15,548 feet above, and its landing strip is 18,045 feet long (compared to Furnace Creek’s landing strip of 3,065 feet).

It appears that air pressure is at play here when it comes to strip length. The landing strip at Furnace Creek is asphalt and 70 feet wide, but it has no runway end identifier lights. No tie down ropes are available either, so a high wind day might prove problematic. This field averages 28 aircraft operations per day (as of March 2008).

Death Valley National Park Superintendent Sarah Craighead is the airport manager – give her a telephone call for further information, or visit online by clicking HERE.